All The Right NotesA flood of new and reissued Beethoven recordings have emerged in the past two Beethoven anniversary years, and riding on this celebratory bandwagon, the illustrious Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has released this cycle of Beethoven symphonies, derived from radio recordings of live performances, on its house label. Continue readingRCO’s Live Beethoven Cycle
This was a release that I very much looked forward to, for two reasons. Firstly, there’s a dearth of Shostakovich’s light music on recordings, especially compared to the rate at which new symphony cycles have been issued in recent years, Continue readingLitton’s Long-Faced Light Shostakovich
This album is simply the embodiment of unadulterated joy. Here we have three of Debussy’s most accessible and evocative piano scores, orchestrated by two of his contemporaries Henri Büsser (Petite Suite) and André Caplet (La boîte à joujoux and Children’s Corner), gathered in one handy package. Continue readingDelightful Debussy Orchestrations
These two live recordings of John Williams conducting the Vienna and Berlin philharmonics were hotly anticipated, and for good reason. Not only were these concerts the débuts of the world’s most famous film composer in the two musical metropolises respectively (and in Europe generally), the recordings were also documents of the rare forays of these two august orchestras into film music. Continue readingJohn Williams: Vienna vs. Berlin
